________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
When I was Deputy Chief, and that idea was being advanced, I argued that districts really do
need divisions, they just don't understand that they need them. They need them because their
perspective is so narrow that they'll always be in trouble unless there's a division engineer
there to help bail them out, do some of the interactions with certain congressional folks, and
provide that level of review that keeps them out of trouble. When we get to the Ohio River
Division, if you want me to give example after example, I don't know if I'll give it or not, but
I mean there are cases where we really do need divisions--and the Corps' one-up review
policies are a given.
That's not just reviewing an engineer design, but ideas. I mean, things need to be buffered to
get them right. Sometimes you don't get a buffering if one person's the only god. So, the fact
that they have to show and tell, other ideas come to play, products usually get better. That's
where I think we are in USACE. Divisions come testify to Congress and then with the
assistant secretary's policy-making function, which is separate from USACE, and so that sort
of clouds a nice clean line of comparison with my MACOM example.
I think basically the fact that the Chief of Engineers wants his regional commanders--the
division commander--to take charge of that region is much like the Chief of Staff of the
Army looks to his USAREUR commander to be the guy who's calling the shots. That's who
I want to tell me, the Chief of Staff, how it's to be in USAREUR. That's the one I want to
tell me, the Chief of Engineers, how it should be in the Ohio River Division.
Then you have the executing arms below, the districts. We allow them a little freedom to go
out and talk with the locals, and we're talking governors, mayors, and congressmen, so that's
where it gets a little confused. Those people don't have any problems with that. Sometimes
people do have problems with that. Without doubt, the division is needed to take a very
myopic perception of a district and broaden it. So, the Lower Mississippi Valley Division can
talk about the whole lower Mississippi, not just the reach up around Memphis.
Q:
Well, at this point, after three years in Germany, you're getting ready to head back to the
United States. Do you have any reflections about what it was like going back, what you felt
like headed back to Washington? Were you reluctant to leave Germany?
A:
Well, I have to say that I mentioned that year in USAREUR headquarters was the most
intense year of my career. Literally, with all of those things I mentioned, I worked every
Saturday and I believe every Sunday but three during that year. It was a most intense period. I
think I was approaching burnout and needed a change. I think, in retrospect, the decision to
combine Installations and Construction into one single division overloaded one colonel.
Later, the Installations and Construction Division was divided and re-established as separate
divisions in the Office of the DCSENGR.
At the same time, it was a very satisfying year because I thought things were rolling now in
our rapid reinforcement of NATO program. I left with a Storage Branch established. We now
knew the facilitization status of where things were and the DCSENGR was fixed as the,
quote, "expert" on what should happen, where. Incidentally, over the years that Storage
Branch went away.
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